Tag Archives: monument

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Red Rock Vista

November 14, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Trees and brush and red rock stretching toward the horizon

This was a day of travel and establishing a new “home base” with a different group of friends. It began at a national park campground, involved a bit of driving on paved and unpaved roads, and ended at a rustic “camp site” close to 50 miles out on a gravel track. We arrived and spent a bit of time settling in, getting our camp for the next few days organized, and later each of us spent a bit of time wandering the nearby hills and “tuning up” our vision for the coming photographic work.

That evening we wanted to photograph something, but at this late hour and following a somewhat busy day our goal had to be a bit modest. So we loaded ourselves into vehicles and drove back up the road a bit to a spot with impressive red rock hills and walked up onto the sandstone slabs. There was much to see and photograph, and the light varied between overcast and that nearly perfect light that shines through thin clouds late in the day. As we climbed higher into these hills I stopped at this spot to take in the long view across curved sandstone terrain toward the farther reaches of the valley, as early evening sun slanted across rocks and vegetation.

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Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Autumn Cottonwood Tree, Sculpted Rock

November 13, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A cottonwood tree with autumn foliage growing in sculpted sandstone terrain

The subject of this photograph is a sort of invisible icon. Let me explain. The location is not a very popular one by the usual standards. It isn’t easy to get to many places in this sprawling national monument. Things are not signed. There are no “photo spot” signs. The great majority of roads are unpaved and some are quite rough. You won’t find campgrounds with running water and flush toilets. Stores are few and far between. (While part of me is certain that its attractions deserve national park status, and frustrated that certain local politics will likely prevent this in the foreseeable future… another part of me thinks that the relative obscurity of national monument status may also have some benefits.)

Yet, there are places that seem to draw folks who love this land and are willing to search things out a bit. This particular sort of landscape of swooping, curving sandstone shapes, deep water pockets, and the occasional cottonwood tree is not that hard to find, and if you look around a bit you can find many, many examples. On this evening we photographed in soft light created by high clouds, and I decided to find a different angle on this lone cottonwood — one that would include it in a receding sequence of layers of sandstone formations.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Canyon Reflections

November 10, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Reflections of canyon and sky in the muddy bed of a canyon stream

I was almost tempted to title this “More Mud.” But I didn’t, even though canyon mud is a very interesting subject throughout this area of the Southwest. I had been in one south Utah location for a few days and it was time to travel to different area to meet up with a friend. Rather than taking the paved roads I decided to follow about 50 miles of gravel back roads — the mileage was shorter but the time was longer. Better yet, this route took me past several interesting sites that I wanted to explore a bit.

One of these is a little canyon that I first visited a few years ago with friends. In fact, this spot was my very first time in one of these deep and narrow canyons, and I recall that the entire experience was foreign to me on that first visit — from walking up the middle of a shallow running stream, to shooting in midday so as to get the best reflected light, and including the new and unusual (to me) sights and sounds of this part of Utah. So I figured that it might be fun to make a brief stop on this drive and wander back up the canyon for an hour or two. The canyon has many attractions, but one is that its regularly running steam keeps the canyon floor mud damp and reflective. Another is that the high walls in some sections can reflect some lovely bright colors down onto the water and the mud. After hitting my turnaround point, as I retraced my steps back down the canyon I paid special attention to the textures and reflections in the mud, and I was excited to find this spot that combined the red sand, the deep blue reflection of sky, the golden reflection of a bit of the canyon walls, and the warm light reflected down into the canyon.

Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Dry Mud and Sand

November 5, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A dry and curled layer of mud atop red sand in the bottom of a Utah canyon

It might be amusing for “normal people” to encounter a group of photographers in the bottom of a narrow Utah canyon, where the photographers might be found clustered attentively and enthusiastically around… dry mud. That was the case here, as a group of use suddenly halted our progress down a small (though much larger later on) canyon to set up tripods, fit just the right lenses, and spend about a half hour making photographs of mud.

However, as is often the case in landscape photography, it turns out that even dried mud may have a lot more going on than a casual glance would suggest. For people who are not particularly conscious of their “seeing,” it would be easy to walk past and think, “that curled mud is very interesting” and not pay much more attention to it. However, a bit of time spent in these narrow canyon walls teaches you to become alert to the possibility that you might be missing certain things. One bit of visual magic in these canyons happens during the middle part of the day, when the sun directly strikes the red rock canyon walls and reflects this red-saturated light down into the bottom of the canyon. Once you train yourself to see past what your visual system tells you it is seeing (brown mud) you can begin to see the intensely red coloration of this light and even begin to notice that there is a blue component where direct light from the open sky reflects off of some surfaces. And then, you may also find yourself intently focusing on making a photograph of a small patch of dry and cracked mud sitting atop red sand.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: monument

Red Rock Vista

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Autumn Cottonwood Tree, Sculpted Rock

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Canyon Reflections

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Dry Mud and Sand

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Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.

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Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.